Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Visual Parallels: Logan + Mad Max: Fury Road

It's almost too perfect. Mad Max: Fury Road is my favorite movie from 2015 while Logan is my favorite in 2017. I do realize it's May but in my experience we only get one masterpiece per year. And Logan is that masterpiece. It's not just well done and beautifully acted film with wonderfully crafted story at the center of it, but it also truly stays with you. Just like Fury Road did.
I remember seeing Fury Road in cinema and knowing by the time Furiosa drove into the sandstorm that I was watching something truly special. And this year I saw Logan and I had the same feeling, but as early as the film began. Incidentally, both movies got black and white releases ("Chrome" for Fury Road and "Noir" for Logan).

While watching Logan I was actually reminded of Fury Road only once - during the first escape scene when Logan drives into the fence. There was such sense of intensity and desperation in this chase scene that really reminded me of Fury Road. Also, just like with Fury Road, while watching the movie I was really rooting for the characters to succeed and escape. And much like with Fury Road at the heart of Logan there are such noble themes - heroism, freedom and acceptance.

Both films focus on a group of people escaping to the place where they finally can be safe in futuristic, dystopian world. Curiously during Fury Road we have no reason to doubt the existence of Green Place (which turns out to be destroyed) while in Logan we have no reason to believe Eden is real (when it is). The themes of outsiders joining forces to escape the evil and oppression are all here. Even when there is little or no hope, they keep going, There is nothing else they can do and they refuse to give up.

And the main two characters are equals - Logan simply must help Laura because of who he is but let's face it other than two times in the movie where Laura is overpowered it's only her size that limits her and makes Logan a key to her survival. Also there are moments when it's Laura who helps Logan - when she gets him to the doctor or takes over the wheel. Max and Furiosa work together and they both recognize each other's strengths and weaknesses. The big similarity between two pairs is also that they hardly speak to each other - they understand each other without words because they are both so similar and they both endured unimaginable amount of pain and suffering.

Just like Max leaves near the end, so does Logan but they both know they have to come back. And while in Fury Road we get happy ending and Furiosa and the girls all reach place they can call home while Max, out of his volition, leaves because he is not ready, Logan's ending is clouded with such sadness, our only consolation being that Logan was a hero till the end and Laura is safe now. And in the end, that is all he wanted.

Now you run on home to your mother... you tell her everything's alright.There are no more guns in the valley.

Here we go (click to enlarge image):

28 comments:

Brilliant. I cannot imagine how long these take you to make (let alone how you come up with which films to pair!), but I absolutely love these posts. Arguably my favorite running series of any blog out there. Great work!

Thank you so much! Oh yeah this one took a while...I kept rewatching both because I remembered similar shot there somewhere but Fury Road has a number of very similar moments. Took me an hour to find that Furiosa and gun shot and it wasn't even clear because the next frame immediately cuts to Immortan Joe

I didn't either, I found additional 10 just yesterday rewatching Logan including one of the most striking of him crawling on the ground. This is the most I found since Prometheus and Alien and those two were linked after all

I think my favorite parallel is the one with Logan laying in the road and Furiosa screaming in the desert. Those are each fantastic visuals individually (as are all of these, honestly), but side-by-side that's f--king fantastic.

Awesome job pulling out all of these moments! It's incredible how well they match up and convey such a similar mood. You are totally spot on with all the moments and themes shared by these movies. The side by side of Laura leaving the grave and Max walking into the crowd kill me.

Awesome post! Both films are visually stunning and are strikingly similar with each other. What I loved about this is that the color tones used in both films compliment each other when put in a post like this. You can't just look at one without looking at the other.

Stunning! I love how the similarities don't just end with the visuals but also go deeper into the story and characters as you wrote in the beginning. It's also a bit funny that there is a bald white British guy in both movies, I just realised.

The colour schemes are the opposite, which I think is somehow also meaningful in regards to the outcome, we have Logan that has a dark ending and is mostly dark and blue, while Fury Road is bright and yellow, and with a more positive ending. And just seeing these images I'm getting this rush of ideas and thoughts which is what a Visual Parallel post should always do, and it does, it's just these two movies for me are as special as they are to you. My favourite from 2015, and most likely my favourite from 2017 - I'm still leaving room for something to wow me.

I can't wait to see more of these types of posts, this is amazing.

PS: Have you thought about pairing three or more movies into the parallels? I have a weird feeling there is a movie that could go with these two.

I don't think anything will wow me this much. It would be a miraculous thing to happen - I think the last time I gave 10/10 to two movies in one year was with Wolf of Wall street and Gravity and they are not on the level of Logan, emotionally and in the end this is what counts.

I only do those posts for films I really love so this is rare occurrence here. I hopefully will make more of them this year than last but it's so much work it's only fun for the films that I really really adore.

I'm sure one of the many movies that Logan was inspired by would fit with Fury Road too. I did use Black Swan in parallels once - with Shame and Neon Demon here and with Birdman in tumblr gifs. But I think finding several shots that tie all three would be too difficult task.

This is amazing, and it must have taken you forever! I'll admit, as much as I love both movies I couldn't think of many similarities but it's clear as day now you've pointed them out :)Here's hoping Logan picks up as much love as Fury Road when awards season rolls round again!

Wow, you did it again - incredible work! Never ceases to amaze me how there can be so many parallels between two movies. I guess to a point there's a standardisation of shots and styles, but even so, this is SO MUCH.

Good comparison Sati. Now that I think of it I think 'Fury Road' was one of my last 5 star movie (immediately before 'Sicario')...'Logan' was my most recent 5 star film. I literally haven't seen a 5 star film since 'Sicario.' Before Fury Road it was 'Gravity.' Hmmmm it seems these masterpieces are biennial...only every odd numbered year! Get it together hollywood.